unmanly weakness of kissing--vehemently kissing--a "big girl," MissAllardyce to wit? In the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie hadseen Coppy so doing, and, like the gentleman he was, had promptly wheeledround and cantered back to his groom, lest the groom should also see.

Under ordinary circumstances he would have spoken to his father, but hefelt instinctively that this was a matter on which Coppy ought first to beconsulted.

"Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up outside that subaltern'sbungalow early one morning--"I want to see you, Coppy!"

"Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, who was at early breakfast in themidst of his dogs. "What mischief have you been getting into now?"

Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad for three days, and sostood on a pinnacle of virtue.

"I've been doing nothing bad," said he, curling himself into a long chairwith a studious affectation of the Colonel's languor after a hot parade.He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes staring roundlyover the rim, asked:--"I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls?"

"By Jove! You're beginning early. Who do you want to kiss?"

"No one. My muvver's always kissing me if I don't stop her. If it isn'tpwoper, how was you kissing Major Allardyce's big girl last morning, by vecanal?"

Coppy's brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allardyce had with great craft managedto keep their engagement secret for a fortnight. There were urgent andimperative reasons why Major Allardyce should not know how matters stoodfor at least another month, and this small marplot had discovered a greatdeal too much.

"Oh, you had that much sense, you young Rip," groaned poor Coppy, halfamused and half angry. "And how many people may you have told about it?"

"Only me myself. You didn't tell when I twied to wide ve buffalo ven mypony was lame; and I fought you wouldn't like."

"Winkie," said Coppy, enthusiastically, shaking the small hand, "you'rethe best of good fellows. Look here, you can't understand all thesethings. One of these days--hang it, how can I make you see it!--I'm goingto marry Miss Allardyce, and then she'll be Mrs. Coppy, as you say. Ifyour young mind is so scandalized at the idea of kissing big girls, go andtell your father."

"What will happen?" said Wee Willie Winkie, who firmly believed that hisfather was omnipotent.

"I shall get into trouble." said Coppy, playing his trump card with anappealing look at the holder of the ace.

Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, adding: "You're thebest of little fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty days from nowyou can tell if you like--tell any one you like."

Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement was dependent on alittle child's word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie's idea of truth,was at ease, for he felt that he would not break promises. Wee WillieWinkie betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, and,slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, was used to regard hergravely with unwinking eye. He was trying to discover why Coppy shouldhave kissed her. She was not half so nice as his own mother. On the otherhand, she was Coppy's property, and would in time belong to him. Thereforeit behooved him to treat her with as much respect as Coppy's big sword orshiny pistol.

The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy kept WeeWillie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the Old Adam brokeout, and he made what he called a "camp-fire" at the bottom of the garden.How could he have foreseen that the flying sparks would have lighted theColonel's little hayrick and consumed a week's store for the horses?Sudden and swift was the punishment--deprivation of the good-conduct badgeand, most sorrowful of all, two days confinement to barracks--the houseand veranda--coupled with the withdrawal of the light of his father'scountenance.

He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up with aquivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weepbitterly in his nursery--called by him "my quarters," Coppy came in theafternoon and attempted to console the culprit.

"I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie, mournfully, "and I didn'tought to speak to you."

Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the house--thatwas not forbidden--and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a ride.

"Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie Winkie.

"Across the river," she answered, and trotted forward.

Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by ariver--dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie hadbeen forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even Coppy--thealmost almighty Coppy--had never set foot beyond it. Wee Willie Winkie hadonce been read to, out of a big blue book, the history of the Princess andthe Goblins--a most wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins were alwayswarring with the children of men until they were defeated by one Curdie.Ever since that date it seemed to him that the bare black and purple hillsacross the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one hadsaid that there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower halvesof the windows were covered with green paper on account of the Bad Men whomight, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms andcomfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end ofall the Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce's big girl,Coppy's property, preparing to venture into their borders! What wouldCoppy say if anything happened to her? If the Goblins ran off with her asthey did with Curdie's Princess? She must at all hazards be turned back.

The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a moment on the veryterrible wrath of his father; and then--broke his arrest! It was a crimeunspeakable. The low sun threw his shadow, very large and very black, onthe trim garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and ordered hispony. It seemed to him in the hush of the dawn that all the big world hadbeen bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny.The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, since the one great sin madeall others insignificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was going to rideover to Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-pace, stepping on the softmould of the flower-borders.

The devastating track of the pony's feet was the last misdeed that cut himoff from all sympathy of Humanity, He turned into the road, leanedforward; and rode as fast as the pony could put foot to the ground in thedirection of the river.

But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against the longcanter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through thecrops, beyond the Police-post when all the guards were asleep, and hermount was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee Willie Winkieleft the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed forward and stillflogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just seeMiss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony plain. Thereason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone oftoo-hastily-assumed authority, had told her over night, that she must notride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teachCoppy a lesson.

Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, Wee Willie Winkie saw theWaler blunder and come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled clear, buther ankle had been severely twisted, and she could not stand. Having thusdemonstrated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was surprised by theapparition of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony.

"You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," panted Wee Willie Winkie,throwing himself off his pony. "And nobody--not even Coppy--must go acwossve wiver, and I came after you ever so hard, but you wouldn't stop, andnow you've hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and--I'vebwoken my awwest! I've bwoken my awwest!"

The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and sobbed. In spite of the painin her ankle the girl was moved.

"Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? What for?"

"You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!" wailed Wee Willie Winkie,disconsolately. "I saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of youvan Bell or ve Butcha or me. And so I came. You must get up and come back.You didn't ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I've bwoken myawwest."

She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which steadied Wee Willie Winkie,who had been brought up to believe that tears were the depth ofunmanliness. Still, when one is as great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie,even a man may be permitted to break down,

"Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, "when you've rested a little, ride back andtell them to send out something to carry me back in. It hurts fearfully."

The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce closed her eyes;the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused by Wee Willie Winkietying up the reins on his pony's neck and setting it free with a viciouscut of his whip that made it whicker. The little animal headed toward thecantonments.

Not one man but two or three had appeared from behind the rocks of thehills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just inthis manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie's soul. Thushad they played in Curdie's garden, he had seen the picture, and thus hadthey frightened the Princess's nurse. He heard them talking to each other,and recognized with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up from oneof his father's grooms lately dismissed. People who spoke that tonguecould not be the Bad Men. They were only natives after all.

They came up to the bowlders on which Miss Allardyce's horse hadblundered.

Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race,aged six and three-quarters, and said briefly and emphatically "_Jao!_"The pony had crossed the river-bed.

The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the one thing Wee WillieWinkie could not tolerate. He asked them what they wanted and why they didnot depart. Other men with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns creptout of the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face toface with an audience some twenty strong, Miss Allardyce screamed.

"Who are you?" said one of the men.

"I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that you go at once. Youblack men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must run intocantonments and take the news that Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and thatthe Colonel's son is here with her."

"Put our feet into the trap?" was the laughing reply. "Hear this boy'sspeech!"

"Say that I sent you--I, the Colonel's son. They will give you money."

"What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the girl, and we canat least ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages on the heights," said avoice in the background.

These _were_ the Bad Men--worse than Goblins--and it needed all Wee WillieWinkie's training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But he feltthat to cry before a native, excepting only his mother's _ayah_, would bean infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he, as future Colonel of the195th, had that grim regiment at his back.

"Are you going to carry us away?" said Wee Willie Winkie, very blanchedand uncomfortable.

A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly,--"And if you docarry us away, I tell you that all my regiment will come up in a day andkill you all without leaving one. Who will take my message to the ColonelSahib?"

Speech in any vernacular--and Wee Willie Winkie had a colloquialacquaintance with three--was easy to the boy who could not yet manage his"r's" and "th's" aright.

Another man joined the conference, crying:--"O foolish men! What this babesays is true. He is the heart's heart of those white troops. For the sakeof peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment will breakloose and gut the valley. _Our_ villages are in the valley, and we shallnot escape. That regiment are devils. They broke Khoda Yar's breast-bonewith kicks when he tried to take the rifles; and if we touch this childthey will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing remains.Better to send a man back to take the message and get a reward. I say thatthis child is their God, and that they will spare none of us, nor ourwomen, if we harm him."

It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made thediversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie,standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his "wegiment,"his own "wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of his extremity.

* * * * *

The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had beenconsternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The littlebeast came in through the parade ground in front of the main barracks,where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon.Devlin, the Color Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle andtumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Corporal as hepassed. "Up, ye beggars! There's something happened to the Colonel's son,"he shouted.

"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Company, double out to theriver--sharp!"

So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear life, andin the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yetfaster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting for WeeWillie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far tooexhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed.

Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were discussing thewisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a look-out fired two shots.

"What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There is the warning! The_pulton_ are out already and are coming across the plain! Get away! Let usnot be seen with the boy!"

The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was fired,withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared.

He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when his father cameup, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allardyce's lap.

And the men of the 195th carried him home with shouts and rejoicings; andCoppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and, to his intensedisgust, kissed him openly in the presence of the men.

But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him that not onlywould the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the good-conduct badgewould be restored as soon as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve.Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story that made him proud of hisson.

"She belonged to you, Coppy," said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating MissAllardyce with a grimy forefinger. "I _knew_ she didn't ought to go acwossve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent Jack home."

It was not in the open fight We threw away the sword, But in the lonely watching In the darkness by the ford. The waters lapped, the night-wind blew, Full-armed the Fear was born and grew. And we were flying ere we knew From panic in the night. --_Beoni Bar>/I>.

Some people hold that an English Cavalry regiment cannot run. This is amistake. I have seen four hundred and thirty-seven sabres flying over theface of the country in abject terror--have seen the best Regiment thatever drew bridle wiped off the Army List for the space of two hours. Ifyou repeat this tale to the White Hussars they will, in all probability,treat you severely. They are not proud of the incident.

You may know the White Hussars by their "side," which is greater than thatof all the Cavalry Regiments on the roster. If this is not a sufficientmark, you may know them by their old brandy. It has been sixty years inthe Mess and is worth going far to taste. Ask for the "McGaire" oldbrandy, and see that you get it. If the Mess Sergeant thinks that you areuneducated, and that the genuine article will be lost on you, he willtreat you accordingly. He is a good man. But, when you are at Mess, youmust never talk to your hosts about forced marches or long-distance rides.The Mess are very sensitive; and, if they think that you are laughing atthem, will tell you so.

As the White Hussars say, it was all the Colonel's fault. He was a newman, and he ought never to have taken the Command. He said that theRegiment was not smart enough. This to the White Hussars, who knew thatthey could walk round any Horse and through any Guns, and over any Foot onthe face of the earth! That insult was the first cause of offence.

Then the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse--the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars!Perhaps you do not see what an unspeakable crime he had committed. I willtry to make it clear. The soul of the Regiment lives in the Drum-Horse whocarries the silver kettle-drums. He is nearly always a big piebald Waler.That is a point of honor; and a Regiment will spend anything you please ona piebald. He is beyond the ordinary laws of casting. His work is verylight, and he only manoeuvres at a foot-pace. Wherefore, so long as he canstep out and look handsome, his well-being is assured. He knows more aboutthe Regiment than the Adjutant, and could not make a mistake if he tried.

The Drum-Horse of the White Hussars was only eighteen years old, andperfectly equal to his duties. He had at least six years' more work inhim, and carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a Drum-Major ofthe Guards. The Regiment had paid Rs.1200 for him.

But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was cast in due form andreplaced by a washy, bay beast, as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck,rat-tail, and cow-hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, and the best ofthe Band-horses put back their ears and showed the whites of their eyes atthe very sight of him. They knew him for an upstart and no gentleman. Ifancy that the Colonel's ideas of smartness extended to the Band, and thathe wanted to make it take part in the regular parade movements. A CavalryBand is a sacred thing. It only turns out for Commanding Officers'parades, and the Band Master is one degree more important than theColonel. He is a High Priest and the "Keel Row" is his holy song. The"Keel Row" is the Cavalry Trot; and the man who has never heard that tunerising, high and shrill, above the rattle of the Regiment going past thesaluting-base, has something yet to hear and understand.

When the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars, there wasnearly a mutiny.

The officers were angry, the Regiment were furious, and the Bandsmenswore--like troopers. The Drum-Horse was going to be put up toauction--public auction--to be bought, perhaps, by a Parsee and put into acart! It was worse than exposing the Inner life of the Regiment to thewhole world, or selling the Mess Plate to a Jew--a Black Jew.

The Colonel was a mean man and a bully. He knew what the Regiment thoughtabout his action; and, when the troopers offered to buy the Drum-Horse, hesaid that their offer was mutinous and forbidden by the Regulations.

But one of the Subalterns--Hogan-Yale, an Irishman--bought the Drum-Horsefor Rs. 160 at the sale, and the Colonel was wroth. Yale professedrepentance--he was unnaturally submissive--and said that, as he had onlymade the purchase to save the horse from possible ill-treatment andstarvation, he would now shoot him and end the business. This appeared tosoothe the Colonel, for he wanted the Drum-Horse disposed of. He felt thathe had made a mistake, and could not of course acknowledge it. Meantime,the presence of the Drum-Horse was an annoyance to him.

Yale took to himself a glass of the old brandy, three cheroots, and hisfriend Martyn; and they all left the Mess together. Yale and Martynconferred for two hours in Yale's quarters; but only the bull-terrier whokeeps watch over Yale's boot-trees knows what they said. A horse, hoodedand sheeted to his ears, left Yale's stables and was taken, veryunwillingly, into the Civil Lines. Yale's groom went with him. Two menbroke into the Regimental Theatre and took several paint-pots and somelarge scenery-brushes. Then night fell over the Cantonments, and there wasa noise as of a horse kicking his loose-box to pieces in Yale's stables.Yale had a big, old, white Waler trap-horse.

The next day was a Thursday, and the men, hearing that Yale was going toshoot the Drum-Horse in the evening, determined to give the beast aregular regimental funeral--a finer one than they would have given theColonel had he died just then. They got a bullock-cart and some sacking,and mounds and mounds of roses, and the body, under sacking, was carriedout to the place where the anthrax cases were cremated; two-thirds of theRegiment following. There was no Band, but they all sang "The Place wherethe old Horse died" as something respectful and appropriate to theoccasion. When the corpse was dumped into the grave and the men beganthrowing down armfuls of roses to cover it, the Farrier-Sergeant rippedout an oath and said aloud, "Why, it ain't the Drum-Horse any more thanit's me!" The Troop Sergeant-Majors asked him whether he had left his headin the Canteen. The Farrier-Sergeant said that he knew the Drum-Horse'sfeet as well as he knew his own; but he was silenced when he saw theregimental number burned in on the poor stiff, upturned near-fore.

Thus was the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars buried; the Farrier-Sergeantgrumbling. The sacking that covered the corpse was smeared In places withblack paint; and the Farrier-Sergeant drew attention to this fact. But theTroop Sergeant-Major of E Troop kicked him severely on the shin, and toldhim that he was undoubtedly drunk.

On the Monday following the burial, the Colonel sought revenge on theWhite Hussars. Unfortunately, being at that time temporarily in Command ofthe Station, he ordered a Brigade field-day. He said that he wished tomake the Regiment "sweat for their damned insolence," and he carried outhis notion thoroughly. That Monday was one of the hardest days in thememory of the White Hussars. They were thrown against a skeleton-enemy,and pushed forward, and withdrawn, and dismounted, and "scientificallyhandled" in every possible fashion over dusty country, till they sweatedprofusely. Their only amusement came late in the day when they fell uponthe battery of Horse Artillery and chased it for two miles. This was apersonal question, and most of the troopers had money on the event; theGunners saying openly that they had the legs of the White Hussars. Theywere wrong. A march-past concluded the campaign, and when the Regiment gotback to their Lines, the men were coated with dirt from spur tochin-strap.

The White Hussars have one great and peculiar privilege. They won it atFontenoy, I think.

Many Regiments possess special rights such as wearing collars with undressuniform, or a bow of riband between the shoulders, or red and white rosesin their helmets on certain days of the year. Some rights are connectedwith regimental saints, and some with regimental successes. All are valuedhighly; but none so highly as the right of the White Hussars to have theBand playing when their horses are being watered in the Lines. Only onetune is played, and that tune never varies. I don't know its real name,but the White Hussars call it, "Take me to London again." It sounds verypretty. The Regiment would sooner be struck off the roster than foregotheir distinction.

After the "dismiss" was sounded, the officers rode off home to prepare forstables; and the men filed into the lines riding easy. That is to say,they opened their tight buttons, shifted their helmets, and began to jokeor to swear as the humor took them; the more careful slipping off andeasing girths and curbs. A good trooper values his mount exactly as muchas he values himself, and believes, or should believe, that the twotogether are irresistible where women or men, girls or guns, areconcerned.

Then the Orderly-Officer gave the order, "Water horses," and the Regimentloafed off to the squadron-troughs which were in rear of the stables andbetween these and the barracks. There were four huge troughs, one for eachsquadron, arranged _en echelon_, so that the whole Regiment could water inten minutes if it liked. But it lingered for seventeen, as a rule, whilethe Band played.

The Band struck up as the squadrons filed off to the troughs, and the menslipped their feet out of the stirrups and chaffed each other. The sun wasjust setting in a big, hot bed of red cloud, and the road to the CivilLines seemed to run straight into the sun's eye. There was a little dot onthe road. It grew and grew till it showed as a horse, with a sort ofgridiron-thing on his back. The red cloud glared through the bars of thegridiron. Some of the troopers shaded their eyes with their hands andsaid--"What the mischief 'as that there 'orse got on 'im?"

In another minute they heard a neigh that every soul--horse and man--inthe Regiment knew, and saw, heading straight toward the Band, the deadDrum-Horse of the White Hussars!

On his withers banged and bumped the kettledrums draped in crape, and onhis back, very stiff and soldierly, sat a bareheaded skeleton.

The Band stopped playing, and, for a moment, there was a hush.

Then some one in E Troop--men said it was the Troop-Sergeant-Major--swunghis horse round and yelled. No one can account exactly for what happenedafterward; but it seems that, at least, one man in each troop set anexample of panic, and the rest followed like sheep. The horses that hadbarely put their muzzles into the troughs reared and capered; but as soonas the Band broke, which it did when the ghost of the Drum-Horse was abouta furlong distant, all hooves followed suit, and the clatter of thestampede--quite different from the orderly throb and roar of a movement onparade, or the rough horse-play of watering in camp--made them only moreterrified. They felt that the men on their backs were afraid of something.When horses once know that, all is over except the butchery.

Troop after troop turned from the troughs and ran--anywhere andeverywhere--like spilled quicksilver. It was a most extraordinaryspectacle, for men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and thecarbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged the horses on. Men wereshouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the Band which was beingchased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen forward and seemed to bespurring for a wager.

The Colonel had gone over to the Mess for a drink. Most of the officerswere with him, and the Subaltern of the Day was preparing to go down tothe lines, and receive the watering reports from the Troop-Sergeant-Majors. When "Take me to London again" stopped, after twenty bars, everyone in the Mess said, "What on earth has happened?" A minute later, theyheard unmilitary noises, and saw, far across the plain, the White Hussarsscattered, and broken, and flying.

The Colonel was speechless with rage, for he thought that the Regiment hadrisen against him or was unanimously drunk. The Band, a disorganized mob,tore past, and at its heels labored the Drum-Horse--the dead and buriedDrum-Horse--with the jolting, clattering skeleton, Hogan-Yale whisperedsoftly to Martyn--"No wire will stand that treatment," and the Band, whichhad doubled like a hare, came back again. But the rest of the Regiment wasgone, was rioting all over the Province, for the dusk had shut in and eachman was howling to his neighbor that the Drum-Horse was on his flank.Troop-horses are far too tenderly treated as a rule. They can, onemergencies, do a great deal, even with seventeen stone on their backs. Asthe troopers found out.

How long this panic lasted I cannot say. I believe that when the moon rosethe men saw they had nothing to fear, and, by twos and threes andhalf-troops, crept back into Cantonments very much ashamed of themselves.Meantime, the Drum-Horse, disgusted at his treatment by old friends,pulled up, wheeled round, and trotted up to the Mess veranda-steps forbread. No one liked to run; but no one cared to go forward till theColonel made a movement and laid hold of the skeleton's foot. The Band hadhalted some distance away, and now came back slowly. The Colonel calledit, individually and collectively, every evil name that occurred to him atthe time; for he had set his hand on the bosom of the Drum-Horse and foundflesh and blood. Then he beat the kettle-drums with his clenched fist, anddiscovered that they were but made of silvered paper and bamboo. Next,still swearing, he tried to drag the skeleton out of the saddle, but foundthat it had been wired into the cantle. The sight of the Colonel, with hisarms round the skeleton's pelvis and his knee in the old Drum-Horse'sstomach, was striking. Not to say amusing. He worried the thing off in aminute or two, and threw it down on the ground, saying to the Band--"Here,you curs, that's what you're afraid of." The skeleton did not look prettyin the twilight The Band-Sergeant seemed to recognize it, for he began tochuckle and choke. "Shall I take it away, sir?" said the Band-Sergeant."Yes," said the Colonel, "take it to Hell, and ride there yourselves!"

The Band-Sergeant saluted, hoisted the skeleton across his saddle-bow, andled off to the stables. Then the Colonel began to make inquiries for therest of the Regiment, and the language he used was wonderful, He woulddisband the Regiment--he would court-martial every soul in it--he wouldnot command such a set of rabble, and so on, and so on. As the men droppedin, his language grew wilder, until at last it exceeded the utmost limitsof free speech allowed even to a Colonel of Horse.

Martyn took Hogan-Yale aside and suggested compulsory retirement from theService as a necessity when all was discovered. Martyn was the weaker manof the two. Hogan-Yale put up his eyebrows and remarked, firstly, that hewas the son of a Lord, and, secondly, that he was as innocent as the babeunborn of the theatrical resurrection of the Drum-Horse.

"My instructions," said Yale, with a singularly sweet smile, "were thatthe Drum-Horse should be sent back as impressively as possible. I ask you,_am_ I responsible if a mule-headed friend sends him back in such a manneras to disturb the peace of mind of a regiment of Her Majesty's Cavalry?"

Martyn said, "You are a great man, and will in time become a General; butI'd give my chance of a troop to be safe out of this affair."

Providence saved Martyn and Hogan-Yale. The Second-in-Command led theColonel away to the little curtained alcove wherein the Subalterns of theWhite Hussars were accustomed to play poker of nights; and there, aftermany oaths on the Colonel's part, they talked together in low tones. Ifancy that the Second-in-Command must have represented the scare as thework of some trooper whom it would be hopeless to detect; and I know thathe dwelt upon the sin and the shame of making a public laughing-stock ofthe scare.

"They will call us," said the Second-in-Command, who had really a fineimagination--"they will call us the 'Fly-by-Nights'; they will call us the'Ghost Hunters'; they will nickname us from one end of the Army List tothe other. All the explanation in the world won't make outsidersunderstand that the officers were away when the panic began. For the honorof the Regiment and for your own sake keep this thing quiet."

The Colonel was so exhausted with anger that soothing him down was not sodifficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently and by degrees,that it was obviously impossible to court-martial the whole Regiment andequally impossible to proceed against any subaltern who, in his belief,had any concern in the hoax.

Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself to soothe the Colonel, andwrestled with him for half an hour. At the end of that time, theRegimental Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation was rather novelto him; but he was not a man to be put out by circumstances. He salutedand said, "Regiment all comeback, Sir." Then, to propitiate theColonel--"An' none of the 'orses any the worse, Sir,"

The Colonel only snorted and answered--"You'd better tuck the men intotheir cots, then, and see that they don't wake up and cry in the night"The Sergeant withdrew.

His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he feltslightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The Second-in-Commandworried him again, and the two sat talking far into the night.

Next day but one, there was a Commanding Officer's parade, and the Colonelharangued the White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his speech was that,since the Drum-Horse in his old age had proved himself capable of cuttingup the whole Regiment, he should return to his post of pride at the headof the Band, _but_ the Regiment were a set of ruffians with badconsciences.

The White Hussars shouted, and threw everything movable about them intothe air, and when the parade was over, they cheered the Colonel till theycouldn't speak. No cheers were put up for Lieutenant Hogan-Yale, whosmiled very sweetly in the background.

Said the Second-in-Command to the Colonel, unofficially--

"These little things ensure popularity, and do not the least affectdiscipline."

"But I went back on my word," said the Colonel.

"Never mind," said the Second-in-Command. "The White Hussars will followyou anywhere from to-day. Regiments are just like women. They will doanything for trinketry."

A week later, Hogan-Yale received an extraordinary letter from some onewho signed himself "Secretary, _Charity and Zeal,_ 3709, E. C.," and askedfor "the return of our skeleton which we have reason to believe is in yourpossession."

"Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades in bones?" said Hogan-Yale.

"Beg your pardon, Sir," said the Band-Sergeant, "but the skeleton is withme, an' I'll return it if you'll pay the carriage into the Civil Lines.There's a coffin with it, Sir."

Hogan-Yale smiled and handed two rupees to the Band-Sergeant, saying,"Write the date on the skull, will you?"

If you doubt this story, and know where to go, you can see the date on theskeleton. But don't mention the matter to the White Hussars.

I happened to know something about it, because I prepared the Drum-Horsefor his resurrection. He did not take kindly to the skeleton at all.

AT TWENTY-TWO

Narrow as the womb, deep as the Pit, and dark as the heart of aman.--_Sonthal Miner's Proverb_.

"A weaver went out to reap but stayed to unravel the corn-stalks. Ha! Ha!Ha! Is there any sense in a weaver?"

Janki Meah glared at Kundoo, but, as Janki Meah was blind, Kundoo was notimpressed. He had come to argue with Janki Meah, and, if chance favored,to make love to the old man's pretty young wife.

This was Kundoo's grievance, and he spoke in the name of all the five menwho, with Janki Meah, composed the gang in Number Seven gallery ofTwenty-Two. Janki Meah had been blind for the thirty years during which hehad served the Jimahari Collieries with pick and crowbar. All throughthose thirty years he had regularly, every morning before going down,drawn from the overseer his allowance of lamp-oil--just as if he had beenan eyed miner. What Kundoo's gang resented, as hundreds of gangs hadresented before, was Janki Meah's selfishness. He would not add the oil tothe common stock of his gang, but would save and sell it.

"I knew these workings before you were born," Janki Meah used to reply; "Idon't want the light to get my coal out by, and I am not going to helpyou. The oil is mine, and I intend to keep it."

A strange man in many ways was Janki Meah, the white-haired, hot tempered,sightless weaver who had turned pitman. All day long--except on Sundaysand Mondays when he was usually drunk--he worked in the Twenty-Two shaftof the Jimahari Colliery as cleverly as a man with all the senses. Atevening he went up in the great steam-hauled cage to the pit-bank, andthere called for his pony--a rusty, coal-dusty beast, nearly as old asJanki Meah. The pony would come to his side, and Janki Meah would clamberon to its back and be taken at once to the plot of land which he, like theother miners, received from the Jimahari Company. The pony knew thatplace, and when, after six years, the Company changed all the allotmentsto prevent the miners from acquiring proprietary rights, Janki Meahrepresented, with tears in his eyes, that were his holdings shifted, hewould never be able to find his way to the new one. "My horse only knowsthat place," pleaded Janki Meah, and so he was allowed to keep his land.

On the strength of this concession and his accumulated oil-savings, JankiMeah took a second wife--a girl of the Jolaha main stock of the Meahs, andsingularly beautiful. Janki Meah could not see her beauty; wherefore hetook her on trust, and forbade her to go down the pit. He had not workedfor thirty years in the dark without knowing that the pit was no place forpretty women. He loaded her with ornaments--not brass or pewter, but realsilver ones--and she rewarded him by flirting outrageously with Kundoo ofNumber Seven gallery gang. Kundoo was really the gang-head, but Janki Meahinsisted upon all the work being entered in his own name, and chose themen that he worked with. Custom--stronger even than the JimahariCompany--dictated that Janki, by right of his years, should manage thesethings, and should, also, work despite his blindness. In Indian mineswhere they cut into the solid coal with the pick and clear it out fromfloor to ceiling, he could come to no great harm. At Home, where theyundercut the coal and bring it down in crashing avalanches from the roof,he would never have been allowed to set foot in a pit. He was not apopular man, because of his oil-savings; but all the gangs admitted thatJanki knew all the _khads,_ or workings, that had ever been sunk or workedsince the Jimahari Company first started operations on the Tarachundafields.

Pretty little Unda only knew that her old husband was a fool who could bemanaged. She took no interest in the collieries except in so far as theyswallowed up Kundoo five days out of the seven, and covered him withcoal-dust. Kundoo was a great workman, and did his best not to get drunk,because, when he had saved forty rupees, Unda was to steal everything thatshe could find in Janki's house and run with Kundoo to a land where therewere no mines, and every one kept three fat bullocks and a milch-buffalo.While this scheme ripened it was his custom to drop in upon Janki andworry him about the oil savings. Unda sat in a corner and nodded approval.On the night when Kundoo had quoted that objectionable proverb aboutweavers, Janki grew angry.

"Listen, you pig," said he, "blind I am, and old I am, but, before everyou were born, I was grey among the coal. Even in the days when theTwenty-Two _khad_ was unsunk and there were not two thousand men here, Iwas known to have all knowledge of the pits. What _khad_ is there that Ido not know, from the bottom of the shaft to the end of the last drive? Isit the Baromba _khad_, the oldest, or the Twenty-Two where Tibu's galleryruns up to Number Five?"

"Hear the old fool talk!" said Kundoo, nodding to Unda. "No gallery ofTwenty-Two will cut into Five before the end of the Rains. We have amonth's solid coal before us. The Babuji says so."

"Babuji! Pigji! Dogji! What do these fat slugs from Calcutta know? Hedraws and draws and draws, and talks and talks and talks, and his maps areall wrong. I, Janki, know that this is so. When a man has been shut up inthe dark for thirty years, God gives him knowledge. The old gallery thatTibu's gang made is not six feet from Number Five."

"Without doubt God gives the blind knowledge," said Kundoo, with a look atUnda. "Let it be as you say. I, for my part, do not know where lies thegallery of Tibu's gang, but _I_ am not a withered monkey who needs oil togrease his joints with."

Kundoo swung out of the hut laughing, and Unda giggled. Janki turned hissightless eyes toward his wife and swore. "I have land, and I have sold agreat deal of lamp-oil," mused Janki; "but I was a fool to marry thischild."

A week later the Rains set in with a vengeance, and the gangs paddledabout in coal-slush at the pit-banks. Then the big mine-pumps were madeready, and the Manager of the Colliery ploughed through the wet toward theTarachunda River swelling between its soppy banks. "Lord send that thisbeastly beck doesn't misbehave," said the Manager, piously, and he went totake counsel with his Assistant about the pumps.

But the Tarachunda misbehaved very much indeed. After a fall of threeinches of rain in an hour it was obliged to do something. It topped itsbank and joined the flood water that was hemmed between two low hills justwhere the embankment of the Colliery main line crossed. When a large partof a rain-fed river, and a few acres of flood-water, made a dead set for anine-foot culvert, the culvert may spout its finest, but the water cannot_all_ get out. The Manager pranced upon one leg with excitement, and hislanguage was improper.

He had reason to swear, because he knew that one inch of water on landmeant a pressure of one hundred tons to the acre; and here were about fivefeet of water forming, behind the railway embankment, over the shallowerworkings of Twenty-Two. You must understand that, in a coal-mine, the coalnearest the surface is worked first from the central shaft. That is tosay, the miners may clear out the stuff to within ten, twenty, or thirtyfeet of the surface, and, when all is worked out, leave only a skin ofearth upheld by some few pillars of coal. In a deep mine where they knowthat they have any amount of material at hand, men prefer to get all theirmineral out at one shaft, rather than make a number of little holes to tapthe comparatively unimportant surface-coal.

And the Manager watched the flood.

The culvert spouted a nine-foot gush; but the water still formed, and wordwas sent to clear the men out of Twenty-Two. The cages came up crammed andcrammed again with the men nearest the pit-eye, as they call the placewhere you can see daylight from the bottom of the main shaft. All away andaway up the long black galleries the flare-lamps were winking and dancinglike so many fireflies, and the men and the women waited for the clanking,rattling, thundering cages to come down and fly up again. But theoutworkings were very far off, and word could not be passed quickly,though the heads of the gangs and the Assistant shouted and swore andtramped and stumbled. The Manager kept one eye on the great troubled poolbehind the embankment, and prayed that the culvert would give way and letthe water through in time. With the other eye he watched the cages come upand saw the headmen counting the roll of the gangs. With all his heart andsoul he swore at the winder who controlled the iron drum that wound up thewire rope on which hung the cages.

In a little time there was a down-draw in the water behind theembankment--a sucking whirlpool, all yellow and yeasty. The water hadsmashed through the skin of the earth and was pouring into the old shallowworkings of Twenty-Two.

Deep down below, a rush of black water caught the last gang waiting forthe cage, and as they clambered in, the whirl was about their waists. Thecage reached the pit-bank, and the Manager called the roll. The gangs wereall safe except Gang Janki, Gang Mogul, and Gang Rahim, eighteen men, withperhaps ten basket-women who loaded the coal into the little ironcarriages that ran on the tramways of the main galleries. These gangs werein the out-workings, three-quarters of a mile away, on the extreme fringeof the mine. Once more the cage went down, but with only two English menin it, and dropped into a swirling, roaring current that had almosttouched the roof of some of the lower side-galleries. One of the woodenbalks with which they had propped the old workings shot past on thecurrent, just missing the cage.

The cage drew out of the water with a splash, and a few minutes later, itwas officially reported that there were at least ten feet of water in thepit's eye. Now ten feet of water there meant that all other places in themine were flooded except such galleries as were more than ten feet abovethe level of the bottom of the shaft. The deep workings would be full, themain galleries would be full, but in the high workings reached by inclinesfrom the main roads, there would be a certain amount of air cut off, so tospeak, by the water and squeezed up by it. The little science-primersexplain how water behaves when you pour it down test-tubes. The floodingof Twenty-Two was an illustration on a large scale.

* * * * *

"By the Holy Grove, what has happened to the air!" It was a Sonthalgangman of Gang Mogul in Number Nine gallery, and he was driving asix-foot way through the coal. Then there was a rush from the othergalleries, and Gang Janki and Gang Rahim stumbled up with theirbasket-women.

"Water has come in the mine," they said, "and there is no way of gettingout."

"I went down," said Janki--"down the slope of my gallery, and I felt thewater."

"There has been no water in the cutting in our time," clamored the women,"Why cannot we go away?"

"Be silent!" said Janki, "Long ago, when my father was here, water came toTen--no, Eleven--cutting, and there was great trouble. Let us get away towhere the air is better."

The three gangs and the basket-women left Number Nine gallery and wentfurther up Number Sixteen. At one turn of the road they could see thepitchy black water lapping on the coal. It had touched the roof of agallery that they knew well--a gallery where they used to smoke their_huqas_ and manage their flirtations. Seeing this, they called aloud upontheir Gods, and the Mehas, who are thrice bastard Muhammadans, strove torecollect the name of the Prophet. They came to a great open square whencenearly all the coal had been extracted. It was the end of theout-workings, and the end of the mine.

Far away down the gallery a small pumping-engine, used for keeping dry adeep working and fed with steam from above, was throbbing faithfully. Theyheard it cease.

"They have cut off the steam," said Kundoo, hopefully. "They have giventhe order to use all the steam for the pit-bank pumps. They will clear outthe water."

"If the water has reached the smoking-gallery," said Janki, "all theCompany's pumps can do nothing for three days."

"It is very hot," moaned Jasoda, the Meah basket-woman. "There is a verybad air here because of the lamps."

"Put them out," said Janki; "why do you want lamps?" The lamps were putout and the company sat still in the utter dark. Somebody rose quietly andbegan walking over the coals. It was Janki, who was touching the wallswith his hands. "Where is the ledge?" he murmured to himself.

"Sit, sit!" said Kundoo. "If we die, we die. The air is very bad."

But Janki still stumbled and crept and tapped with his pick upon thewalls. The women rose to their feet.

"Stay all where you are. Without the lamps you cannot see, and I--I amalways seeing," said Janki. Then he paused, and called out: "Oh, you whohave been in the cutting more than ten years, what is the name of thisopen place? I am an old man and I have forgotten."

"Bullia's Room," answered the Sonthal, who had complained of the vilenessof the air.

"Again," said Janki.

"Bullia's Room."

"Then I have found it," said Janki. "The name only had slipped my memory.Tibu's gang's gallery is here."

"A lie," said Kundoo. "There have been no galleries in this place since myday."

"Three paces was the depth of the ledge," muttered Janki, withoutheeding--"and--oh, my poor bones!--I have found it! It is here, up thisledge, Come all you, one by one, to the place of my voice, and I willcount you,"

There was a rush in the dark, and Janki felt the first man's face hit hisknees as the Sonthal scrambled up the ledge.

"Who?" cried Janki.

"I, Sunua Manji."

"Sit you down," said Janki, "Who next?"

One by one the women and the men crawled up the ledge which ran along oneside of "Bullia's Room." Degraded Muhammadan, pig-eating Musahr and wildSonthal, Janki ran his hand over them all.

"Now follow after," said he, "catching hold of my heel, and the womencatching the men's clothes." He did not ask whether the men had broughttheir picks with them. A miner, black or white, does not drop his pick.One by one, Janki leading, they crept into the old gallery--a six-foot waywith a scant four feet from hill to roof.

"The air is better here," said Jasoda. They could hear her heart beatingin thick, sick bumps.

"Slowly, slowly," said Janki. "I am an old man, and I forget many things.This is Tibu's gallery, but where are the four bricks where they used toput their _huqa_ fire on when the Sahibs never saw? Slowly, slowly, O youpeople behind."

They heard his hands disturbing the small coal on the floor of the galleryand then a dull sound. "This is one unbaked brick, and this is another andanother. Kundoo is a young man--let him come forward. Put a knee upon thisbrick and strike here. When Tibu's gang were at dinner on the last daybefore the good coal ended, they heard the men of Five on the other side,and Five worked _their_ gallery two Sundays later--or it may have beenone. Strike there, Kundoo, but give me room to go back."

Kundoo, doubting, drove the pick, but the first soft crush of the coal wasa call to him. He was fighting for his life and for Unda--pretty littleUnda with rings on all her toes--for Unda and the forty rupees. The womensang the Song of the Pick--the terrible, slow, swinging melody with themuttered chorus that repeats the sliding of the loosened coal, and, toeach cadence, Kundoo smote in the black dark. When he could do no more,Sunua Manji took the pick, and struck for his life and his wife, and hisvillage beyond the blue hills over the Tarachunda River. An hour the menworked, and then the women cleared away the coal.

"It is farther than I thought," said Janki. "The air is very bad; butstrike, Kundoo, strike hard,"

For the fifth time Kundoo took up the pick as the Sonthal crawled back.The song had scarcely recommenced when it was broken by a yell from Kundoothat echoed down the gallery: "_Par hua! Par hua!_ We are through, we arethrough!" The imprisoned air in the mine shot through the opening, and thewomen at the far end of the gallery heard the water rush through thepillars of "Bullia's Room" and roar against the ledge. Having fulfilledthe law under which it worked, it rose no farther. The women screamed andpressed forward, "The water has come--we shall be killed! Let us go."

Kundoo crawled through the gap and found himself in a propped gallery bythe simple process of hitting his head against a beam.

"Do I know the pits or do I not?" chuckled Janki. "This is the NumberFive; go you out slowly, giving me your names. Ho! Rahim, count your gang!Now let us go forward, each catching hold of the other as before."

They formed a line in the darkness and Janki led them--for a pit-man in astrange pit is only one degree less liable to err than an ordinary mortalunderground for the first time. At last they saw a flare-lamp, and GangsJanki, Mogul, and Rahim of Twenty-Two stumbled dazed into the glare of thedraught-furnace at the bottom of Five; Janki feeling his way and the restbehind.

"Water has come into Twenty-Two. God knows where are the others. I havebrought these men from Tibu's gallery in our cutting; making connectionthrough the north side of the gallery. Take us to the cage," said JankiMeah.

* * * * *

At the pit-bank of Twenty-Two, some thousand people clamored and wept andshouted. One hundred men--one thousand men--had been drowned in thecutting. They would all go to their homes to-morrow. Where were their men?Little Unda, her cloth drenched with the rain, stood at the pit-mouthcalling down the shaft for Kundoo. They had swung the cages clear of themouth, and her only answer was the murmur of the flood in the pit's eyetwo hundred and sixty feet below.

"Look after that woman! She'll chuck herself down the shaft in a minute,"shouted the Manager.

But he need not have troubled; Unda was afraid of Death. She wantedKundoo. The Assistant was watching the flood and seeing how far he couldwade into it. There was a lull in the water, and the whirlpool hadslackened. The mine was full, and the people at the pit-bank howled.

"My faith, we shall be lucky if we have five hundred hands on the placeto-morrow!" said the Manager. "There's some chance yet of running atemporary dam across that water. Shove in anything--tubs and bullock-cartsif you haven't enough bricks. Make them work _now_ if they never workedbefore. Hi! you gangers, make them work."

Little by little the crowd was broken into detachments, and pushed towardthe water with promises of overtime. The dam-making began, and when it wasfairly under way, the Manager thought that the hour had come for thepumps. There was no fresh inrush into the mine. The tall, red,iron-clamped pump-beam rose and fell, and the pumps snored and gutteredand shrieked as the first water poured out of the pipe.

"We must run her all to-night," said the Manager, wearily, "but there's nohope for the poor devils down below. Look here, Gur Sahai, if you areproud of your engines, show me what they can do now."

Gur Sahai grinned and nodded, with his right hand upon the lever and anoil-can in his left. He could do no more than he was doing, but he couldkeep that up till the dawn. Were the Company's pumps to be beaten by thevagaries of that troublesome Tarachunda River? Never, never! And the pumpssobbed and panted: "Never, never!" The Manager sat in the shelter of thepit-bank roofing, trying to dry himself by the pump-boiler fire, and, inthe dreary dusk, he saw the crowds on the dam scatter and fly.

"That's the end," he groaned. "'Twill take us six weeks to persuade 'emthat we haven't tried to drown their mates on purpose. Oh, for a decent,rational Geordie!"

But the flight had no panic in it. Men had run over from Five withastounding news, and the foremen could not hold their gangs together.Presently, surrounded by a clamorous crew, Gangs Rahim, Mogul, and Janki,and ten basket-women, walked up to report themselves, and pretty littleUnda stole away to Janki's hut to prepare his evening meal.

"Alone I found the way," explained Janki Meah, "and now will the Companygive me pension?"

The simple pit-folk shouted and leaped and went back to the dam, reassuredin their old belief that, whatever happened, so great was the power of theCompany whose salt they ate, none of them could be killed. But Gur Sahaionly bared his white teeth and kept his hand upon the lever and proved hispumps to the uttermost.

* * * * *

"I say," said the Assistant to the Manager, a week later, "do yourecollect _Germinal?_"

"Yes. 'Queer thing, I thought of it In the cage when that balk went by.Why?"

"Oh, this business seems to be _Germinal_ upside down. Janki was in myveranda all this morning, telling me that Kundoo had eloped with hiswife--Unda or Anda, I think her name was."

"Hillo! And those were the cattle that you risked your life to clear outof Twenty-Two!"

"No--I was thinking of the Company's props, not the Company's men."

"Sounds better to say so _now_; but I don't believe you, old fellow."

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD

What did the colonel's lady think? Nobody never knew. Somebody asked the sergeant's wife An' she told 'em true. When you git to a man in the case They're like a row o' pins, For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady Are sisters under their skins.

_Barrack Room Ballad._

All day I had followed at the heels of a pursuing army engaged on one ofthe finest battles that ever camp of exercise beheld. Thirty thousandtroops had by the wisdom of the Government of India been turned loose overa few thousand square miles of country to practice in peace what theywould never attempt in war. Consequently cavalry charged unshaken infantryat the trot. Infantry captured artillery by frontal attacks delivered inline of quarter columns, and mounted infantry skirmished up to the wheelsof an armored train which carried nothing more deadly than a twenty-fivepounder Armstrong, two Nordenfeldts, and a few score volunteers all casedin three-eighths-inch boiler-plate. Yet it was a very lifelike camp.Operations did not cease at sundown; nobody knew the country and nobodyspared man or horse. There was unending cavalry scouting and almostunending forced work over broken ground. The Army of the South had finallypierced the centre of the Army of the North, and was pouring through thegap hot-foot to capture a city of strategic importance. Its front extendedfanwise, the sticks being represented by regiments strung out along theline of route backward to the divisional transport columns and all thelumber that trails behind an army on the move. On its right the brokenleft of the Army of the North was flying in mass, chased by the Southernhorse and hammered by the Southern guns till these had been pushed farbeyond the limits of their last support. Then the flying sat down to rest,while the elated commandant of the pursuing force telegraphed that he heldall in check and observation.

Unluckily he did not observe that three miles to his right flank a flyingcolumn of Northern horse with a detachment of Ghoorkhas and British troopshad been pushed round, as fast as the failing light allowed, to cut acrossthe entire rear of the Southern Army, to break, as it were, all the ribsof the fan where they converged by striking at the transport, reserveammunition, and artillery supplies. Their instructions were to go in,avoiding the few scouts who might not have been drawn off by the pursuit,and create sufficient excitement to impress the Southern Army with thewisdom of guarding their own flank and rear before they captured cities.It was a pretty manoeuvre, neatly carried out.

Speaking for the second division of the Southern Army, our firstintimation of the attack was at twilight, when the artillery were laboringin deep sand, most of the escort were trying to help them out, and themain body of the infantry had gone on. A Noah's Ark of elephants, camels,and the mixed menagerie of an Indian transport-train bubbled and squealedbehind the guns, when there appeared from nowhere in particular Britishinfantry to the extent of three companies, who sprang to the heads of thegun-horses and brought all to a standstill amid oaths and cheers.

"How's that, umpire?" said the major commanding the attack, and with onevoice the drivers and limber gunners answered "Hout!" while the colonel ofartillery sputtered.

"All your scouts are charging our main body," said the major. "Your flanksare unprotected for two miles. I think we've broken the back of thisdivision. And listen,--there go the Ghoorkhas!"

A weak fire broke from the rear-guard more than a mile away, and wasanswered by cheerful howlings. The Ghoorkhas, who should have swung clearof the second division, had stepped on its tail in the dark, but drawingoff hastened to reach the next line of attack, which lay almost parallelto us five or six miles away.

Our column swayed and surged irresolutely,--three batteries, thedivisional ammunition reserve, the baggage, and a section of the hospitaland bearer corps. The commandant ruefully promised to report himself "cutup" to the nearest umpires and commending his cavalry and all othercavalry to the special care of Eblis, toiled on to resume touch with therest of the division.

"We'll bivouac here to-night," said the major, "I have a notion that theGhoorkhas will get caught. They may want us to re-form on. Stand easy tillthe transport gets away,"

A hand caught my beast's bridle and led him out of the choking dust; alarger hand deftly canted me out of the saddle; and two of the hugesthands in the world received me sliding. Pleasant is the lot of the specialcorrespondent who falls into such hands as those of Privates Mulvaney,Ortheris, and Learoyd.

"'Ere's a orficer," said Ortheris, significantly. "When the sergent's donelushin' the privit may clean the pot."

I bundled several things into Mulvaney's haversack before the major's handfell on my shoulder and he said, tenderly, "Requisitioned for the Queen'sservice. Wolseley was quite wrong about special correspondents: they arethe soldier's best friends. Come and take pot-luck with us to-night."

And so it happened amid laughter and shoutings that my well-consideredcommissariat melted away to reappear later at the mess-table, which was awaterproof sheet spread on the ground. The flying column had taken threedays' rations with it, and there be few things nastier than governmentrations--especially when government is experimenting with German toys.Erbsenwurst, tinned beef of surpassing tinniness, compressed vegetables,and meat-biscuits may be nourishing, but what Thomas Atkins needs is bulkin his inside. The major, assisted by his brother officers, purchasedgoats for the camp and so made the experiment of no effect. Long beforethe fatigue-party sent to collect brushwood had returned, the men weresettled down by their valises, kettles and pots had appeared from thesurrounding country and were dangling over fires as the kid and thecompressed vegetable bubbled together; there rose a cheerful clinking ofmess-tins; outrageous demands for "a little more stuffin' with that thereliver-wing;" and gust on gust of chaff as pointed as a bayonet and asdelicate as a gun-butt.

"The boys are in a good temper," said the major. "They'll be singingpresently. Well, a night like this is enough to keep them happy."

Over our heads burned the wonderful Indian stars, which are not allpricked in on one plane, but, preserving an orderly perspective, draw theeye through the velvet darkness of the void up to the barred doors ofheaven itself. The earth was a grey shadow more unreal than the sky. Wecould hear her breathing lightly in the pauses between the howling of thejackals, the movement of the wind in the tamarisks, and the fitful mutterof musketry-fire leagues away to the left. A native woman from some unseenhut began to sing, the mail-train thundered past on its way to Delhi, anda roosting crow cawed drowsily. Then there was a belt-loosening silenceabout the fires, and the even breathing of the crowded earth took up thestory.

The men, full fed, turned to tobacco and song,--their officers with them.The subaltern is happy who can win the approval of the musical critics inhis regiment, and is honored among the more intricate step-dancers. Byhim, as by him who plays cricket cleverly, Thomas Atkins will stand intime of need, when he will let a better officer go on alone. The ruinedtombs of forgotten Mussulman saints heard the ballad of _Agra Town, TheBuffalo Battery, Marching to Kabul, The long, long Indian Day, The Placewhere the Punkah-coolie died_, and that crashing chorus which announces,

Youth's daring spirit, manhood's fire, Firm hand and eagle eye, Must he acquire who would aspire To see the grey boar die.

To-day, of all those jovial thieves who appropriated my commissariat andlay and laughed round that waterproof sheet, not one remains. They went tocamps that were not of exercise and battles without umpires. Burmah, theSoudan, and the frontier,--fever and fight,--took them in their time.

I drifted across to the men's fires in search of Mulvaney, whom I foundstrategically greasing his feet by the blaze. There is nothingparticularly lovely in the sight of a private thus engaged after a longday's march, but when you reflect on the exact proportion of the "might,majesty, dominion, and power" of the British Empire which stands on thosefeet you take an interest in the proceedings.

Ortheris took out his house-wife, eased the trouble with a needle, stabbedMulvaney in the calf with the same weapon, and was swiftly kicked into thefire.

"I've bruk the best av my toes over you, ye grinnin' child av disruption,"said Mulvaney, sitting cross-legged and nursing his feet; then seeing me,"Oh, ut's you, sorr! Be welkim, an' take that maraudin' scutt's place,Jock, hold him down on the cindhers for a bit."

But Ortheris escaped and went elsewhere, as I took possession of thehollow he had scraped for himself and lined with his greatcoat. Learoyd onthe other side of the fire grinned affably and in a minute fell fastasleep.

"There's the height av politeness for you," said Mulvaney, lighting hispipe with a flaming branch. "But Jock's eaten half a box av your sardinesat wan gulp, an' I think the tin too. What's the best wid you, sorr, an'how did you happen to be on the losin' side this day whin we capturedyou?"

"The Army of the South is winning all along the line," I said.

"Then that line's the hangman's rope, savin' your presence. You'll learnto-morrow how we rethreated to dhraw thim on before we made thim trouble,an' that's what a woman does. By the same tokin, we'll be attacked beforethe dawnin' an' ut would be betther not to slip your boots. How do I knowthat? By the light av pure reason. Here are three companies av us ever sofar inside av the enemy's flank an' a crowd av roarin', tarin', squealin'cavalry gone on just to turn out the whole hornet's nest av them. Avcourse the enemy will pursue, by brigades like as not, an' thin we'll haveto run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion av Polonius whin hesaid, 'Don't fight wid ivry scutt for the pure joy av fightin', but if youdo, knock the nose av him first an' frequint.'. We ought to ha' gone onan' helped the Ghoorkhas."

"But what do you know about Polonius?" I demanded. This was a new side ofMulvaney's character.

"All that Shakespeare iver wrote an' a dale more that the galleryshouted," said the man of war, carefully lacing his boots. "Did I not tellyou av Silver's theatre in Dublin, whin I was younger than I am now an' apatron av the drama? Ould Silver wud never pay actor-man or woman theirjust dues, an' by consequince his comp'nies was collapsible at the lastminut. Thin the bhoys wud clamor to take a part, an' oft as not ouldSilver made them pay for the fun. Faith, I've seen Hamlut played wid a newblack eye an' the queen as full as a cornucopia. I remimber wanst Hoginthat 'listed in the Black Tyrone an' was shot in South Africa, he sejucedould Silver into givin' him Hamlut's part instid av me that had a finefancy for rhetoric in those days. Av course I wint into the gallery an'began to fill the pit wid other people's hats, an' I passed the time avday to Hogin walkin' through Denmark like a hamstrung mule wid a pall onhis back, 'Hamlut,' sez I, 'there's a hole in your heel. Pull up yourshtockin's, Hamlut,' sez I, 'Hamlut, Hamlut, for the love av decincy dhropthat skull an' pull up your shtockin's.' The whole house begun to tell himthat. He stopped his soliloquishms mid-between. 'My shtockin's may becomin' down or they may not,' sez he, screwin' his eye into the gallery,for well he knew who I was. 'But afther this performince is over me an'the Ghost 'll trample the tripes out av you, Terence, wid your ass'sbray!' An' that's how I come to know about Hamlut. Eyah! Those days, thosedays! Did you iver have onendin' devilmint an' nothin' to pay for it inyour life, sorr?"

"Never, without having to pay," I said.

"That's thrue! 'Tis mane whin you considher on ut; but ut's the same widhorse or fut. A headache if you dhrink, an' a belly-ache if you eat toomuch, an' a heart-ache to kape all down. Faith, the beast only gets thecolic, an' he's the lucky man."

He dropped his head and stared into the fire, fingering his moustache thewhile. From the far side of the bivouac the voice of Corbet-Nolan, seniorsubaltern of B Company, uplifted itself in an ancient and much appreciatedsong of sentiment, the men moaning melodiously behind him.

With forty-five O's in the last word: even at that distance you might havecut the soft South Irish accent with a shovel.

"For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel high," murmuredMulvaney when the chorus had ceased.

"What's the trouble?" I said gently, for I knew that he was a man of aninextinguishable sorrow.

"Hear now," said he. "Ye know what I am now. _I_ know what I mint to be atthe beginnin' av my service. I've tould you time an' again, an' what Ihave not Dinah Shadd has. An' what am I? Oh, Mary Mother av Hiven, an oulddhrunken, untrustable baste av a privit that has seen the reg'ment changeout from colonel to drummer-boy, not wanst or twice, but scores av times!Ay, scores! An' me not so near gettin' promotion as in the first! An' melivin' on an' kapin' clear av clink, not by my own good conduck, but thekindness av some orf'cer-bhoy young enough to be son to me! Do I not knowut? Can I not tell whin I'm passed over at p'rade, tho' I'm rockin' fullav liquor an' ready to fall all in wan piece, such as even a suckin' childmight see, bekaze, 'Oh, 'tis only ould Mulvaney!' An' whin I'm let off inord'ly-room through some thrick of the tongue an' a ready answer an' theould man's mercy, is ut smilin' I feel whin I fall away an' go back toDinah Shadd, thryin' to carry ut all off as a joke? Not I! 'Tis hell tome, dumb hell through ut all; an' next time whin the fit comes I will beas bad again. Good cause the reg'ment has to know me for the best soldierin ut. Better cause have I to know mesilf for the worst man. I'm only fitto tache the new drafts what I'll niver learn mesilf; an' I am sure, astho' I heard ut, that the minut wan av these pink-eyed recruities getsaway from my 'Mind ye now,' an' 'Listen to this, Jim, bhoy,'--sure I amthat the sergint houlds me up to him for a warnin'. So I tache, as theysay at musketry-instruction, by direct and ricochet fire. Lord be good tome, for I have stud some throuble!"

"Lie down and go to sleep," said I, not being able to comfort or advise."You're the best man in the regiment, and, next to Ortheris, the biggestfool. Lie down and wait till we're attacked. What force will they turnout? Guns, think you?"

"Begin at the beginning and go on to the end," I said, royally. "But rakeup the fire a bit first."

I passed Ortheris's bayonet for a poker.

"That shows how little we know what we do," said Mulvaney, putting itaside. "Fire takes all the heart out av the steel, an' the next time, maybe, that our little man is fighting for his life his bradawl 'll break,an' so you'll ha' killed him, manin' no more than to kape yourself warm.'Tis a recruity's thrick that. Pass the clanin'-rod, sorr."

I snuggled down abased; and after an interval the voice of Mulvaney began.

"Did I iver tell you how Dinah Shadd came to be wife av mine?"

I dissembled a burning anxiety that I had felt for some months--ever sinceDinah Shadd, the strong, the patient, and the infinitely tender, had ofher own good love and free will washed a shirt for me, moving in a barrenland where washing was not.

"I can't remember," I said, casually. "Was it before or after you madelove to Annie Bragin, and got no satisfaction?"

The story of Annie Bragin is written in another place. It is one of themany less respectable episodes in Mulvaney's checkered career.

"Before--before--long before, was that business av Annie Bragin an' thecorp'ril's ghost. Niver woman was the worse for me whin I had marriedDinah. There's a time for all things, an' I know how to kape all things inplace--barrin' the dhrink, that kapes me in my place wid no hope av comin'to be aught else."

"Begin at the beginning," I insisted. "Mrs. Mulvaney told me that youmarried her when you were quartered in Krab Bokhar barracks."

"An' the same is a cess-pit," said Mulvaney, piously. "She spoke thrue,did Dinah. 'Twas this way. Talkin' av that, have ye iver fallen in love,sorr?"

I preserved the silence of the damned. Mulvaney continued--

"Thin I will assume that ye have not. _I_ did. In the days av my youth, asI have more than wanst tould you, I was a man that filled the eye an'delighted the sowl av women. Niver man was hated as I have bin. Niver manwas loved as I--no, not within half a day's march av ut! For the firstfive years av my service, whin I was what I wud give my sowl to be now, Ituk whatever was within my reach an' digested ut--an' that's more thanmost men can say. Dhrink I tuk, an' ut did me no harm. By the Hollow avHiven, I cud play wid four women at wanst, an' kape them from findin' outanythin' about the other three, an' smile like a fullblown marigoldthrough ut all. Dick Coulhan, av the battery we'll have down on usto-night, could drive his team no better than I mine, an' I hild theworser cattle! An' so I lived, an' so I was happy till afther thatbusiness wid Annie Bragin--she that turned me off as cool as a meat-safe,an' taught me where I stud in the mind av an honest woman. 'Twas no sweetdose to swallow.

"Afther that I sickened awhile an' tuk thought to my reg'mental work;conceiting mesilf I wud study an' be a sargint, an' a major-gineral twintyminutes afther that. But on top av my ambitiousness there was an emptyplace in my sowl, an' me own opinion av mesilf cud not fill ut. Sez I tomesilf, 'Terence, you're a great man an' the best set-up in the reg'mint.Go on an' get promotion.' Sez mesilf to me, 'What for?' Sez I to mesilf,'For the glory av ut!' Sez mesilf to me, 'Will that fill these two strongarrums av yours, Terence?' 'Go to the devil,' sez I to mesilf, 'Go to themarried lines,' sez mesilf to me. 'Tis the same thing,' sez I to mesilf.'Av you're the same man, ut is,' said mesilf to me; an' wid that Iconsidhered on ut a long while. Did you iver feel that way, sorr?"

I snored gently, knowing that if Mulvaney were uninterrupted he would goon. The clamor from the bivouac fires beat up to the stars, as the rivalsingers of the companies were pitted against each other.

"So I felt that way an' a bad time ut was. Wanst, bein' a fool, I wintinto the married lines more for the sake av spakin' to our ouldcolor-sergint Shadd than for any thruck wid womenfolk. I was a corp'rilthen--rejuced aftherward, but a corp'ril then. I've got a photograft avmesilf to prove ut. 'You'll take a cup av tay wid us?' sez Shadd. 'I willthat,' I sez, 'tho' tay is not my divarsion.'

"''Twud be better for you if ut were,' sez ould Mother Shadd, an' she hadought to know, for Shadd, in the ind av his service, dhrank bung-full eachnight.

"Wid that I tuk off my gloves--there was pipe-clay in thim, so that theystud alone--an' pulled up my chair, lookin' round at the china ornamentsan' bits av things in the Shadds' quarters. They were things that belongedto a man, an' no camp-kit, here to-day an' dishipated next. 'You'recomfortable in this place, sergint,' sez I. ''Tis the wife that did ut,boy,' sez he, pointin' the stem av his pipe to ould Mother Shadd, an' shesmacked the top av his bald head apon the compliment. 'That manes you wantmoney,' sez she.

"An' thin--an' thin whin the kettle was to be filled, Dinah came in--myDinah--her sleeves rowled up to the elbow an' her hair in a winkin' gloryover her forehead, the big blue eyes beneath twinklin' like stars on afrosty night, an' the tread av her two feet lighter than wastepaper fromthe colonel's basket in ord'ly-room whin ut's emptied. Bein' but a shlipav a girl she went pink at seein' me, an' I twisted me moustache an'looked at a picture forninst the wall. Niver show a woman that ye care thesnap av a finger for her, an' begad she'll come bleatin' to yourboot-heels!"

"I suppose that's why you followed Annie Bragin till everybody in themarried quarters laughed at you," said I, remembering that unhallowedwooing and casting off the disguise of drowsiness.

"I'm layin' down the gin'ral theory av the attack," said Mulvaney, drivinghis boot into the dying fire. "If you read the _Soldier's Pocket Book_,which niver any soldier reads, you'll see that there are exceptions. WhinDinah was out av the door (an' 'twas as tho' the sunlight had shuttoo)--'Mother av Hiven, sergint,' sez I, 'but is that yourdaughter?'--'I've believed that way these eighteen years,' sez ould Shadd,his eyes twinklin'; 'but Mrs. Shadd has her own opinion, like iv'rywoman,'--'Tis wid yours this time, for a mericle,' sez Mother Shadd. 'Thinwhy in the name av fortune did I niver see her before?' sez I. 'Bekazeyou've been thrapesin' round wid the married women these three years past.She was a bit av a child till last year, an' she shot up wid the spring,'sez ould Mother Shadd, 'I'll thrapese no more,' sez I. 'D'you mane that?'sez ould Mother Shadd, lookin' at me side-ways like a hen looks at a hawkwhin the chickens are runnin' free. 'Try me, an' tell,' sez I. Wid that Ipulled on my gloves, dhrank off the tay, an' went out av the house asstiff as at gin'ral p'rade, for well I knew that Dinah Shadd's eyes werein the small av my back out av the scullery window. Faith! that was theonly time I mourned I was not a cav'lry man for the pride av the spurs tojingle.

"I wint out to think, an' I did a powerful lot av thinkin', but ut allcame round to that shlip av a girl in the dotted blue dhress, wid the blueeyes an' the sparkil in them. Thin I kept off canteen, an' I kept to themarried quarthers, or near by, on the chanst av meetin' Dinah. Did I meether? Oh, my time past, did I not; wid a lump in my throat as big as myvalise an' my heart goin' like a farrier's forge on a Saturday morning?'Twas 'Good day to ye, Miss Dinah,' an' 'Good day t'you, corp'ril,' for aweek or two, and divil a bit further could I get bekaze av the respect Ihad to that girl that I cud ha' broken betune finger an' thumb."

Here I giggled as I recalled the gigantic figure of Dinah Shadd when shehanded me my shirt.

"Ye may laugh," grunted Mulvaney. "But I'm speakin' the trut', an' 'tisyou that are in fault. Dinah was a girl that wud ha' taken theimperiousness out av the Duchess av Clonmel in those days. Flower hand,foot av shod air, an' the eyes av the livin' mornin' she had that is mywife to-day--ould Dinah, and niver aught else than Dinah Shadd to me.

"'Twas after three weeks standin' off an' on, an' niver makin' headwayexcipt through the eyes, that a little drummer boy grinned in me face whinI had admonished him wid the buckle av my belt for riotin' all over theplace, 'An' I'm not the only wan that doesn't kape to barricks,' sez he. Ituk him by the scruff av his neck,--my heart was hung on a hair-thriggerthose days, you will onderstand--an' 'Out wid ut,' sez I, 'or I'll lave nobone av you unbreakable,'--'Speak to Dempsey,' sez he howlin'. 'Dempseywhich?' sez I, 'ye unwashed limb av Satan.'--'Av the Bob-tailedDhragoons,' sez he, 'He's seen her home from her aunt's house in the civillines four times this fortnight,'--'Child!' sez I, dhroppin' him, 'yourtongue's stronger than your body. Go to your quarters. I'm sorry Idhressed you down.'

"At that I went four ways to wanst huntin' Dempsey. I was mad to thinkthat wid all my airs among women I shud ha' been chated by a basin-facedfool av a cav'lryman not fit to trust on a trunk. Presintly I found him inour lines--the Bobtails was quartered next us--an' a tallowy, topheavy sonav a she-mule he was wid his big brass spurs an' his plastrons on hisepigastrons an' all. But he niver flinched a hair.

"Before I cud gyard he had his gloved fist home on my cheek an' down Iwent full-sprawl. 'Will that content you?' sez he, blowin' on his knucklesfor all the world like a Scots Greys orf'cer. 'Content!' sez I. 'For yourown sake, man, take off your spurs, peel your jackut, an' onglove. 'Tisthe beginnin' av the overture; stand up!'

"He stud all he know, but he niver peeled his jacket, an' his shouldershad no fair play. I was fightin' for Dinah Shadd an' that cut on my cheek.What hope had he forninst me? 'Stand up,' sez I, time an' again whin hewas beginnin' to quarter the ground an' gyard high an' go large. 'Thisisn't ridin'-school,' I sez. 'O man, stand up an' let me get in at ye.'But whin I saw he wud be runnin' about, I grup his shtock in my left an'his waist-belt in my right an' swung him clear to my right front, headundher, he hammerin' my nose till the wind was knocked out av him on thebare ground. 'Stand up,' sez I, 'or I'll kick your head into your chest!'and I wud ha' done ut too, so ragin' mad I was.

"'My collar-bone's bruk,' sez he. 'Help me back to lines. I'll walk widher no more.' So I helped him back."

"And was his collar-bone broken?" I asked, for I fancied that only Learoydcould neatly accomplish that terrible throw.

"He pitched on his left shoulder point. Ut was. Next day the news was inboth barricks, an' whin I met Dinah Shadd wid a cheek on me like all thereg'mintal tailor's samples there was no 'Good mornin', corp'ril,' oraught else. 'An' what have I done, Miss Shadd,' sez I, very bould,plantin' mesilf forninst her, 'that ye should not pass the time of day?'

"'Yes,' sez she, in a saint's whisper, an' at that I explained mesilf; andshe tould me what ivry man that is a man, an' many that is a woman, hearswanst in his life.

"'But what made ye cry at startin', Dinah, darlin'?' sez I.

"'Your--your bloody cheek,' sez she, duckin' her little head down on mysash (I was on duty for the day) an' whimperin' like a sorrowful angil.

"Now a man cud take that two ways. I tuk ut as pleased me best an' myfirst kiss wid ut. Mother av Innocence! but I kissed her on the tip av thenose and undher the eye; an' a girl that let's a kiss come tumble-wayslike that has never been kissed before. Take note av that, sorr. Thin wewint hand in hand to ould Mother Shadd like two little childher, an' shesaid 'twas no bad thing, an' ould Shadd nodded behind his pipe, an' Dinahran away to her own room. That day I throd on rollin' clouds. All earthwas too small to hould me. Begad, I cud ha' hiked the sun out av the skyfor a live coal to my pipe, so magnificent I was. But I tuk recruities atsquad-drill instid, an' began wid general battalion advance whin I shudha' been balance-steppin' them. Eyah! that day! that day!"

A very long pause. "Well?" said I.

"'Twas all wrong," said Mulvaney, with an enormous sigh. "An' I know thatev'ry bit av ut was my own foolishness. That night I tuk maybe the half avthree pints--not enough to turn the hair of a man in his natural senses.But I was more than half drunk wid pure joy, an' that canteen beer was somuch whisky to me, I can't tell how it came about, but _bekaze_ I had nothought for anywan except Dinah, _bekaze_ I hadn't slipped her littlewhite arms from my neck five minuts, _bekaze_ the breath of her kiss wasnot gone from my mouth, I must go through the married lines on my way toquarters an' I must stay talkin' to a red-headed Mullingar heifer av agirl, Judy Sheehy, that was daughter to Mother Sheehy, the wife of NickSheehy, the canteen-sergint--the Black Curse av Shielygh be on the wholebrood that are above groun' this day!

"'An' what are ye houldin' your head that high for, corp'ril?' sez Judy.'Come in an' thry a cup av tay,' she sez, standin' in the doorway. Bein'an ontrustable fool, an' thinkin' av anything but tay, I wint.

"'There's no more to be said afther that,' sez I, kissin' her backagain--Oh the mane scutt that I was, my head ringin' wid Dinah Shadd! Howdoes ut come about, sorr, that when a man has put the comether on wanwoman, he's sure bound to put it on another? 'Tis the same thing atmusketry, Wan day ivry shot goes wide or into the bank, an' the next, layhigh lay low, sight or snap, ye can't get off the bull's-eye for ten shotsrunnin'."

"That only happens to a man who has had a good deal of experience. He doesit without thinking," I replied.

"Thankin' you for the complimint, sorr, ut may be so. But I'm doubtfulwhether you mint ut for a complimint. Hear now; I sat there wid Judy on myknee tellin' me all manner av nonsinse an' only sayin' 'yes' an' 'no,'when I'd much better ha' kept tongue betune teeth. An' that was not anhour afther I had left Dinah! What I was thinkin' av I cannot say,Presintly. quiet as a cat, ould Mother Sheehy came in velvet-dhrunk. Shehad her daughter's red hair, but 'twas bald in patches, an' I cud see inher wicked ould face, clear as lightnin', what Judy wud be twenty years tocome. I was for jumpin' up, but Judy niver moved.

"'Nonsinse!' sez the ould woman, prickin' up her ears like a cat an'grippin' the table-edge. ''Twill be the most nonsinsical nonsinse for you,ye grinnin' badger, if nonsinse 'tis. Git clear, you. I'm goin' to bed.'

"I ran out into the dhark, my head in a stew an' my heart sick, but I hadsinse enough to see that I'd brought ut all on mysilf. 'It's this to passthe time av day to a panjandhrum av hellcats,' sez I. 'What I've said, an'what I've not said do not matther. Judy an' her dam will hould me for apromust man, an' Dinah will give me the go, an' I desarve ut. I will goan' get dhrunk,' sez I, 'an' forget about ut, for 'tis plain I'm not amarrin' man.'

"On my way to canteen I ran against Lascelles, color-sergeant that was avE Comp'ny, a hard, hard man, wid a torment av a wife. 'You've the head ava drowned man on your shoulders,' sez he; 'an' you're goin' where you'llget a worse wan. 'Come back,' sez he. 'Let me go,' sez I. 'I've thrown myluck over the wall wid my own hand!'--'Then that's not the way to get utback again,' sez he. 'Have out wid your throuble, ye fool-bhoy.' An' Itould him how the matther was.

"He sucked in his lower lip. 'You've been thrapped,' sez he. 'Ju Sheehywud be the betther for a man's name to hers as soon as can. An' ye thoughtye'd put the comether on her,--that's the natural vanity of the baste.Terence, you're a big born fool, but you're not bad enough to marry intothat comp'ny. If you said anythin', an' for all your protestations I'msure ye did--or did not, which is worse,--eat ut all--lie like the fatherof all lies, but come out av ut free av Judy. Do I not know what ut is tomarry a woman that was the very spit an' image av Judy whin she was young?I'm gettin' old an' I've larnt patience, but you, Terence, you'd raisehand on Judy an' kill her in a year. Never mind if Dinah gives you the go,you've desarved ut; never mind if the whole reg'mint laughs you all day.Get shut av Judy an' her mother. They can't dhrag you to church, but ifthey do, they'll dhrag you to hell. Go back to your quarters and liedown,' sez he. Thin over his shoulder, 'You _must_ ha' done with thim,'

"Next day I wint to see Dinah, but there was no tucker in me as I walked.I knew the throuble wud come soon enough widout any handlin' av mine, an'I dreaded ut sore.

"I heard Judy callin' me, but I hild straight on to the Shadds' quarthers,an' Dinah wud ha' kissed me but I put her back.

"I had scarce begun to put the explanation into shape before Judy an' hermother came to the door. I think there was a veranda, but I'm forgettin'.

"'Will ye not step in?' sez Dinah, pretty and polite, though the Shaddshad no dealin's with the Sheehys. Old Mother Shadd looked up quick, an'she was the fust to see the throuble; for Dinah was her daughter.

"'I'm pressed for time to-day,' sez Judy as bould as brass; 'an' I've onlycome for Terence,--my promust man. Tis strange to find him here the dayafther the day.'

"Dinah looked at me as though I had hit her, an' I answered straight.

"'There was some nonsinse last night at the Sheehys' quarthers, an' Judy'scarryin' on the joke, darlin',' sez I.

"'At the Sheehys' quarthers?' sez Dinah very slow, an' Judy cut in wid:'He was there from nine till ten, Dinah Shadd, an' the betther half avthat time I was sittin' on his knee, Dinah Shadd. Ye may look and ye maylook an' ye may look me up an' down, but ye won't look away that Terenceis my promust man, Terence, darlin', 'tis time for us to be comin' home.'

"Dinah Shadd niver said word to Judy. 'Ye left me at half-past eight,' shesez to me, 'an' I niver thought that ye'd leave me for Judy,--promises, orno promises. Go back wid her, you that have to be fetched by a girl! I'mdone with you,' sez she, and she ran into her own room, her motherfollowin'. So I was alone wid those two women and at liberty to spake mysentiments.

"'Judy Sheehy,' sez I, 'if you made a fool av me betune the lights youshall not do ut in the day. I niver promised you words or lines.'

"'An' tho' ut choked me where I stud I'd not change,' sez I. 'Go home,Judy. I take shame for a decent girl like you dhraggin' your mother outbareheaded on this errand. Hear now, and have ut for an answer. I gave myword to Dinah Shadd yesterday, an', more blame to me, I was wid you lastnight talkin' nonsinse but nothin' more. You've chosen to thry to hould meon ut. I will not be held thereby for anythin' in the world. Is thatenough?'

"Judy wint pink all over. 'An' I wish you joy av the perjury,' sez she,duckin' a curtsey. 'You've lost a woman that would ha' wore her hand tothe bone for your pleasure; an' 'deed, Terence, ye were not thrapped....'Lascelles must ha' spoken plain to her. 'I am such as Dinah is--'deed Iam! Ye've lost a fool av a girl that'll niver look at you again, an' ye'velost what ye niver had,--your common honesty. If you manage your men asyou manage your love-makin', small wondher they call you the worstcorp'ril in the comp'ny. Come away, mother,' sez she.

"But divil a fut would the ould woman budge! 'D'you hould by that?' sezshe, peerin' up under her thick grey eyebrows.

"'An' am I shameless?' sez she, bringin' her hands up above her head.'Thin what are you, ye lyin', schamin', weak-kneed, dhirty-souled son av asutler? Am _I_ shameless? Who put the open shame on me an' my child thatwe shud go beggin' through the lines in the broad daylight for the brokenword of a man? Double portion of my shame be on you, Terence Mulvaney,that think yourself so strong! By Mary and the saints, by blood and wateran' by ivry sorrow that came into the world since the beginnin', the blackblight fall on you and yours, so that you may niver be free from pain foranother when ut's not your own! May your heart bleed in your breast dropby drop wid all your friends laughin' at the bleedin'! Strong you thinkyourself? May your strength be a curse to you to dhrive you into thedivil's hands against your own will! Clear-eyed you are? May your eyes seedear evry step av the dark path you take till the hot cindhers av hell putthim out! May the ragin' dry thirst in my own ould bones go to you thatyou shall niver pass bottle full nor glass empty. God preserve the lightav your onder-standin' to you, my jewel av a bhoy, that ye may niverforget what you mint to be an' do, whin you're wallowin' in the muck! Mayye see the betther and follow the worse as long as there's breath in yourbody; an' may ye die quick in a strange land; watchin' your death beforeut takes you, an' onable to stir hand or foot!'

"I heard a scufflin' in the room behind, and thin Dinah Shadd's handdhropped into mine like a rose-leaf into a muddy road.

"'An' you!' said ould Mother Sheehy, spinnin' round forninst Dinah. 'Willye take the half av that man's load? Stand off from him, Dinah Shadd,before he takes you down too--you that look to be a quarther-master-sergeant's wife in five years. You look too high, child. You shall _wash_for the quarther-master-sergeant, whin he plases to give you the job outav charity; but a privit's wife you shall be to the end, an' evry sorrowof a privit's wife you shall know and nivir a joy but wan, that shall gofrom you like the running tide from a rock. The pain av bearin' you shallknow but niver the pleasure av giving the breast; an' you shall put awaya man-child into the common ground wid never a priest to say a prayer overhim, an' on that man-child ye shall think ivry day av your life. Thinklong, Dinah Shadd, for you'll niver have another tho' you pray till yourknees are bleedin'. The mothers av childer shall mock you behind your backwhen you're wringing over the washtub. You shall know what ut is to help adhrunken husband home an' see him go to the gyard-room. Will that plaseyou, Dinah Shadd, that won't be seen talkin' to my daughter? You shalltalk to worse than Judy before all's over. The sergints' wives shall lookdown on you contemptuous, daughter av a sergint, an' you shall cover utall up wid a smiling face when your heart's burstin'. Stand off av him,Dinah Shadd, for I've put the Black Curse of Shielygh upon him an' his ownmouth shall make ut good."

"She pitched forward on her head an' began foamin' at the mouth. DinahShadd ran out wid water, an' Judy dhragged the ould woman into the verandatill she sat up.

"'I'm old an' forlore,' she sez, thremblin' an' cryin', 'and 'tis like Isay a dale more than I mane.'

"'When you're able to walk,--go,' says ould Mother Shadd. 'This house hasno place for the likes av you that have cursed my daughter.'

"'Eyah!' said the ould woman. 'Hard words break no bones, an' Dinah Shadd'll keep the love av her husband till my bones are green corn, Judydarlin', I misremember what I came here for. Can you lend us the bottom ava taycup av tay, Mrs. Shadd?'

"Is ut like I'd forget? Ivry word that wicked ould woman spoke fell thruein my life aftherward, an' I cud ha' stud ut all--stud ut all--excipt whenmy little Shadd was born. That was on the line av march three monthsafther the regiment was taken with cholera. We were betune Umballa an'Kalka thin, an' I was on picket. Whin I came off duty the women showed methe child, an' ut turned on uts side an' died as I looked. We buried himby the road, an' Father Victor was a day's march behind wid the heavybaggage, so the comp'ny captain read a prayer. An' since then I've been achildless man, an' all else that ould Mother Sheehy put upon me an' DinahShadd. What do you think, sorr?"

I thought a good deal, but it seemed better then to reach out forMulvaney's hand. The demonstration nearly cost me the use of threefingers. Whatever he knows of his weaknesses, Mulvaney is entirelyignorant of his strength.

"But what do you think?" he repeated, as I was straightening out thecrushed fingers.

My reply was drowned in yells and outcries from the next fire, where tenmen were shouting for "Orth'ris," "Privit Orth'ris," "MistahOr--ther--ris!" "Deah boy," "Cap'n Orth'ris," "Field-Marshal Orth'ris,""Stanley, you pen'north o' pop, come 'ere to your own comp'ny!" And thecockney, who had been delighting another audience with recondite andRabelaisian yarns, was shot down among his admirers by the major force.